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It’s been a month since the Trump administration released its Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People. The plan drew mixed reactions among Israelis and the Palestinians rejected it unequivocally. Knowing the plan would be controversial, the writers painstakingly explained that it was “realistic” and based on complex on-the-ground realities. They asked readers to be intellectually honest and open minded when considering their proposals. Having done that, here are four reasons why I believe Christians, especially, should not support it.

First, the plan is unfair and unjust both in process and substance. The Palestinians were not consulted in its creation, and their absence is apparent throughout the document. This is deeply problematic because, if implemented, the plan will have a profound impact on their future. Though described as an “opening offer” by administration officials, the plan dictates outcomes on the most contentious issues—Jerusalem, refugees, and borders—all in a manner most favorable to Israel and the administration asks that it be the new anchor in future negotiations. Further highlighting the asymmetries, the phrase “subject to Israeli” security requirements, consideration, civilian administration, or responsibility appears throughout the document as a limitation to a wide range of possible Palestinian actions.

Although the rhetoric of concern for the livelihoods and aspirations of the Palestinian people abounds throughout the Vision, ultimately its substance belies it. This is shown most starkly in the conditioning of the implementation of the economic component of the plan on Palestinian acceptance and full implementation of the (unfair) political terms. Given the dire economic condition of the Palestinian people, this requirement can only be interpreted as coercion.

The unfairness of the plan has been noted (and rejected) by the Arab League, Organization for Islamic Cooperation, some congressional Democrats, at least four democratic candidates for president, various members of the United Nations Security Council, members of the European Union and the African Union. The Pope has reportedly alluded to this problem as well.

Second, the plan, particularly as it pertains to Palestinian statehood, is disingenuous. Though employing the language of statehood, what the plan offers Palestinians is not a state in any meaningful sense. In fact, given the many preconditions, it is unclear if it can be considered an offer at all.

The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories summarizes some of the problems as follows:

“The Palestinian statelet … would be scattered archipelagos of non-contiguous territory completely surrounded by Israel, with no external borders, no control over its airspace, no right to a military to defend its security, no geographic basis for a viable economy … and with no ability to complain to international judicial forums against Israel ….”

The proposed entity is so confounding that observers have struggled to find a term that adequately describes it. Some have called it a “state-minus,” “pseudo-state,” even a “21^st century Bantustan.” Mahmoud Abbas likened the settlement-scarred territory to “Swiss cheese.”  The Administration rather unconvincingly addresses the obvious geography problem by pointing to the “innovative” transportation system that will connect the enclaves, supposedly rendering their lack of contiguity irrelevant. As for the lack of meaningful markers of statehood (particularly true self-determination), it argues that we need to change our understanding of sovereignty. “Sovereignty is an amorphous concept” and in our interdependent world states can enter “agreements that set parameters essential to each state,” they write. Sure, but in this case the Palestinians are not voluntarily ceding the most essential attributes of statehood, those are being taken away from them at the onset.

Moreover, to even have the privilege of statehood, the writers impose preconditions such as the two quoted below:

The Palestinians shall have implemented a governing system with a constitution or another system for establishing the rule of law that provides for freedom of press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, protections for religious freedom and for religious minorities to observe their faith, uniform and fair enforcement of law and contractual rights, due process under law, and an independent judiciary with appropriate legal consequences and punishment established for violations of the law.

The Palestinians shall have established transparent, independent, and credit-worthy financial institutions capable of engaging in international market transactions in the same manner as financial institutions of western democracies with appropriate governance to prevent corruption and ensure the proper use of such funds, and a legal system to protect investments and to address market-based commercial expectations. The State of Palestine should meet the independent objective criteria to join the International Monetary Fund.

Whether the Palestinians have met the criteria “must be determined to have occurred by the State of Israel and the United States, jointly, acting in good faith …” the plan reads. Although the substance of the two criteria above is certainly desirable in a 21st century state, it is important to note that for many existing states around the world (that are not considered “failed states”) these remain aspirational. To consider their full realization necessary for the Palestinian state to exist at all is unfair and hypocritical. Moreover, requiring credible institutions before statehood is to put the cart before the horse. The lack of the latter will necessarily cripple the development of the former.

The preceding and the fact that Israel, just weeks after the announcement and without Palestinian input or assent, is already preparing to annex territory in the West Bank and has, along with the United States, already established a committee for the purpose brings into question the genuineness of the offer of Palestinian statehood.

Third, if the plan is implemented, it will undermine rather than enhance Israeli security by legalizing a volatile and unsustainable geographical and political arrangement that will only further dehumanize both Israelis and Palestinians. Israel will indeed become what many of its critics have long argued it already is—a bi-national “apartheid” state. Even former foreign ministers from across Europe have voiced concerns about the inevitability of this outcome. Instead of offering  Palestinians “a path to a dignified national life” as it claims, the plan would only guarantee their subjugation. It will entrench existing racial/ethnic prejudices and injustices (described in this podcast by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy at 11:50-13:00) and this will only further embitter the Palestinians and increase violence. In response, Israel will feel compelled to employ ever more brutal and repressive measures to enhance its security, making peace even more elusive.

Fourth, as written, the plan is disrespectful, condescending, and contemptuous toward the Palestinians both in its spirit and, in some cases, its language. Noting this problem, Daniel Levy described it as a “hate letter” to the Palestinians. With Israeli benignity and stability and Palestinian malignity and instability assumed throughout, it seems the writers lacked an understanding of the importance and delicateness of national pride, and how, when wounded, can harden even the most unreasonable positions.

The plan humiliates the Palestinians by essentially telling them, “We will give you a state that we think is suitable for you when you get yourselves together in manner that satisfies us.” Just in case readers are unsure of my reading of the tone of the document, the administration’s senior adviser on the plan, in his many post-release interviews, left no doubt.

Whatever the path is to Israeli-Palestinian peace, disrespect and contempt cannot be part of it.

If peace is still the goal, the honest (and indeed more effective) approach to this complex situation would have been for the administration to acknowledge that the current conditions are not conducive to the creation of a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement that would allow for legitimate Palestinian statehood. Instead of pushing forward a deeply flawed and unrealistic plan, the administration could have focused on creating better conditions by building trust between the parties, working with the international community to address the security threats facing Israel, and fortifying existing domestic and international mechanisms to ensure that the current political and economic conditions do not deteriorate further. Pretending peace is possible at this time and using the peace process for political ends when lives are at stake is dangerous and unethical.

For these reasons, we should not support the Vision.

On November 18, 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement indicating that after extensive legal review the current administration did not find Israel’s building of settlements in the West Bank “per se inconsistent with international law.” As expected, the usual cacophony ensued. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded the decision saying it “rights a historical wrong;” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat issued a statement calling it evidence of the administration’s “attempts to replace international law with the ‘law of the jungle’;” Martin Indyk, former U.S. envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, asked, “why slap the Palestinians in the face again?” The United Nations, United Kingdom and European Union issued their own statements reaffirming the illegality of the settlements under international law.

Although the Secretary’s statement was accessorized with legal nuance and qualification, it reflected a clear cold political choice: the United States was essentially giving Israel unfettered permission to build settlements in the West Bank, which, depending on how much more construction occurs, could result in de facto annexation. The equivocation seemed only to serve the purpose of giving the administration an “out” should the consequences not be pretty.

Particularly concerning was the secretary’s assertion that calling the settlements illegal had not advanced the cause of peace. His view rang hollow not only because it is unprovable, but also because it misunderstands the role of international law in the peace process. The relevant, though contested, law in this case being the binding Security Council resolutions that have declared the settlements as having no “legal validity” (SC Res. 446, 1979) and their building a “flagrant violation under international law” (SC Res. 2334, 2016) as well as Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) which prohibits the forcible transfer of protected persons from occupied territory. These and other legal principles noted in the International Court of Justice’s 2004 Advisory Opinion on the construction of the wall have provided a rules-based framework (born of many years of hard diplomacy) designed to make the desired political, negotiated solution possible. The law is thus a part of the political process, serving the important purpose of constraining dangerous instincts and providing some semblance of stability in a volatile and complex situation.

Now, by effectively removing what remained of the legal pillar of the peace process, the decision has (1) confirmed the death of the two-state solution, leaving a morally-troubling and politically-questionable alternative in its stead and (2) sanctioned and given renewed moral legitimacy to the idea of rule by the powerful in a world that has slowly and painstakingly been trying to move beyond it. The decision tells our post-World War II world, in the words of Michael Doran in his latest piece in Foreign Affairs, “the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Had Secretary Pompeo added “get over it,” the message could not have been clearer.

Peacemaking is hard. It is harder in a complex conflict in which the parties more than occasionally engage in unhelpful behaviors, and hardest when influential peacemakers take a side. For over six decades, the three realities have made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one of the world’s most intractable. As the world awaits the political component of the current U.S. administration’s peace plan, there are genuine questions about whether its approach—whatever it may be—will make any difference. With the legal, political and diplomatic frameworks for the peace process in disarray and a dysfunctional and fractured Palestinian leadership to boot, prospects for peace seem nonexistent. But if they dare, Christians may have the power to change that.

As I wrote in my post on the Golan heights (March 27), support for Israel among U.S. Christians runs deep. Indeed, some might even consider it not just politically risky but un-Christian to question it. Over the years, however, this often unquestioned commitment has blinded enough Christians to the ways in which they may not only be shaping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but also arguably becoming an obstacle to the peace they seek. I’ll highlight just two blind spots here.

First, because many Christians tend to understand the conflict primarily in biblical-theological terms, they abstract its daily on-the-ground realities, and ordinary Palestinians are too often the casualties of this abstraction. Not only are the human rights issues they face daily largely unknown to U.S.-based Christians because of underreporting in the major media outlets, the significance of the few that do come to light is obscured by a theological conviction that is too often, unfortunately, tinged with an understated but powerful us-versus-them politico-cultural hue. The result has been an empathy gap that lessens the gravity of the human rights issues Palestinians face, effectively diminishing their humanity. This has, in turn, lessened the sense of urgency that ordinarily accompanies violations of fundamental human rights and delayed calls for resolution.

It’s time more Christians acknowledge and play an active role in addressing the human rights issues confronting stateless Palestinians.

In his 2019 report, the United Nations’ independent Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories presents an especially troubling portrait of Palestinian life in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Among many problems, he notes housing discrimination that makes it difficult for Palestinians to obtain permits to build homes, the detention of Palestinian children usually for offences such as stone throwing, administrative detentions wherein Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons for purported security reasons on secret evidence and without trial, the punitive demolitions of the homes of the families of suspected terrorists that result in displacement, the lack of accountability among Israel Defense Forces for the wrongful killings of Palestinians, and violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

The report also details the dire economic condition of Palestinians. Citing the International Labor Organization’s finding that the unemployment rate in the Occupied Territories is the highest in the world, the special rapporteur notes that partly because of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, which significantly restricts the ability of Gazans to exploit the full economic potential of their resources, two-thirds of Gaza’s estimated 1.8 million inhabitants live on less than $3.6 USD/day and 68% are food insecure. The latter is particularly concerning given that 35% of Gaza’s farmland is, according to report, within an area Israel has designated a “buffer zone.” B’Tselem, an Israel-based non-governmental organization, has also reported Israel’s use of Palestinian land to treat its industrial waste, an issue that is contributing to environmental degradation and posing a threat to people living in the vicinity of the waste treatment facilities.

Water has become a potent symbol of the conflict. With Israel, since 1967, largely controlling the water resources in the Occupied Territories, the UN report notes significant problems in Palestinian access, usage and development of water resources. In the West Bank’s Area C, which makes up 60% of the territory, the Palestinian Authority reportedly does not have access to the agricultural lands and underground reservoirs. And while Israelis in both Israel and the Occupied Territories enjoy access to enough water for personal and commercial use, Palestinians experience frequent shortages because of both technical failures and Israel-imposed obstacles that restrict their ability to replace old pipelines and drill wells. In a 2016 report, the European Parliament Research Service found that residents of Israel and Israelis in Palestinian territories enjoyed three times as much water per person per day as Palestinians in the West Bank.

Gaza’s water problems are much worse. The special rapporteur describes them as “a crisis verging on humanitarian catastrophe.” An estimated 96% of the Coastal Aquifer, Gaza’s primary source of water, has been found “unfit for human consumption” because of over-pumping and the seepage of sewage. And, an estimated third of the monthly wages of the already underemployed and impoverished population is reportedly spent on water purchases, with many simply using the tainted water from the barely operational public taps. The latter occurs at a time when access to healthcare and essential medicines is already a challenge in Gaza due to war-related damage to infrastructure as well as severe Israel-imposed travel restrictions.

The well-documented violence in the territories persists, and instances of violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank are reportedly increasing (and unlikely to stop as Israeli settlement building continues). In this climate of stress, fear and insecurity, the Humanitarian Country Team found that at least 260,000 Palestinians need mental health and psychosocial support.

Whatever differences may exist among Christians about Israel’s domestic politics or the best ways to address the state’s real and significant security challenges, all must at least agree that Palestinians, like all humans, should be afforded the opportunity to live in dignity. Christians ought to be especially aware of and sensitive to the impacts of the kinds of injustices described in the special rapporteur’s report. Christian reticence (and in many cases, silence) in addressing these human rights issues is too often interpreted as acquiescence in the perpetuation of human suffering.

Second, for far too long and consistent with the first problem, many Christians have largely supported one-sided approaches to the conflict—mostly carrots for the Israelis and sticks for the Palestinians—and failed to consistently demand from both parties the hard concessions required to make peace even remotely possible.

It’s time more Christians oppose one-sided approaches to the conflict.

In the last two years, the United States has closed the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) offices in Washington and cut off much needed aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In the same period, despite the troubling implications and international outcry, it has moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, proclaimed the Golan Heights Israeli territory, ceased to refer to the Palestinian territories as “occupied,” and threatened the International Criminal Court if it ever investigated any matter pertaining to Israel. Nothing appears to have been asked of Israel in return. In the face of such partiality, little wonder Palestinians have come to believe there is much more to lose from engaging in an American-led peace process than from abstaining altogether.

As a group with a peace-making mandate, Christians ought to be aware that successful peacemaking requires that both parties’ concerns are heard and legitimate grievances taken seriously. It also involves disrupting unhelpful entrenched dynamics and making hard and sometimes politically risky choices. It bears repeating that Palestinians are most concerned about their right to self-determination, a right enshrined in the first articles of the U.N. Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Israelis are most concerned about security, also a fundamental matter essential for every state.

To become better peacemakers in this complex and volatile situation, more Christians should (a) begin to see Palestinians first as people rather than as a problem to be overcome, (b) acknowledge the legitimacy of their human rights concerns, and (c) require that Israel, the more powerful party in that conflict, recognize the same. If Christians are unwilling to do this, they might as well simply ignore the oft-quoted biblical admonition to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Ps. 122:6) because through their silences and inaction, especially on the human rights issues, they are effectively working against it.